Mythbusters: Unified Access Edition: Part 2

There’s been a lot of buzz around our recent Cisco Unified Access Solution announcement. We understand there is also some confusion around what’s what, what’s required for Unified Access, and what the impact will be on IT.

False. The release of the Cisco Catalyst 3850 delivers industry-leading performance with up to 40Gbps. wireless throughput per switch for industry leading 160Gbps in a four member stack. For wireless-only deployments the Cisco 5760 Wireless LAN controller delivers the industry’s highest performance in a 1RU controller with 60Gbps. throughput.

By terminating the CAPWAP tunnel closer to the user the Cisco Catalyst 3850 improves rich media and application experience by reducing the need for latency sensitive traffic to travel to the data center when communicating with other devices connected to the same switch. This is often referred to as the hair pinning effect. By eliminating the hair pinning IT reduces the distance traffic has to travel, improves performance, optimizes resources and minimizes latency to enable a consistent wired and wireless experience.

The Cisco Aironet 3600 access points can add 802.11ac support via a plugin module. Other solutions will require you to replace access points to meet these new standards. The current generation of Cisco controllers are ready for 802.11ac, with the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch and Cisco 5760 wireless LAN controller representing a new level of 802.11ac readiness that is unique in the industry with the high level of controller throughput. As organizations prepare to upgrade to 802.11ac, Cisco offers a solution that is efficient and can easily support the new technology.

A third-party Miercom report showed Cisco outpaces the leading competitor’s video performance with 4x the number of iPads supported and 3x times the number of video clients supported with the currently shipping Cisco Aironet 3600 access points. Also, a recent test at the Center for Convergence and Emerging Network Technologies as Syracuse University showed a 55% streaming quality improvement for Citrix video and a rating from good to excellent after applying the Cisco application visibility and control (AVC) Profile. Cisco AVC improves application performance by enabling visibility past mere URL and port-based application recognition in order to identify sub-applications such as file transfers and video of multi- faceted applications. This AV C profile improved MOS score for MS Lync Unified Communications and 55% better Citrix VDI performance.

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